DREAM Activists to Be Released From Broward Detention Center

Updated Sunday, August 5: The National Immigrant Youth Alliance announced that Viridiana Martinez, Marco Saavedra, Ally Ruiz, and Daniel Alvarado -- all DREAM activists -- were arrested on Sunday. Martinez and Saavedra had just been released on Friday. "ICE wasn't taking us serious so we needed to show them that this community is no longer going to live in fear," said a statement from NIYA. It's unclear if ICE will detainee the activists at the Broward Detention Center, which is now on lockdown, according to NIYA. The group is taking donations to help with bail.

Just days after DREAM activist Viridiana Martinez gave a number of interviews live from the Broward Transitional Center, she's being released, according to the National Immigrant Youth Alliance.

Martinez got herself detained on purpose a few weeks back to document the number of people detained at the facility who classify as low-priority cases who shouldn't be deported or detained.

Mohammad Abdollahi, a spokesman with the National Immigrant Youth Alliance, tells New Times that Martinez and fellow activist Marco Saavedra refused to leave when they were released. "They were sent back to their cells. Then a half hour later, we think they were kicked out."

Saavedra says that he hasn't yet confirmed that Martinez and Saavedra have in fact been released but that he was told they were being released today.

Abdollahi says more than 8,000 people have now signed a petition, which can be found here, calling for the "full and immediate review of all detainees at the Broward Transitional Center and the release of anyone who meets the criteria of the June 17, 2011, low-priority discretion memo as laid out by John Morton, director of ICE."